by Betty Webb
“Move along, Miss Jones. There’s nothing to see here.” A tic pulled at the corner of his mouth.
“What happened?”
“Nothing to do with you. Get into your car and go on back to town before I arrest you for interfering with a crime scene.”
Crime scene. Thanks for the information, you dim bulb. I tried for another slipup. “I was at the jail when the call came in that Tosches had been shot. Anybody know the caliber of the bullet?”
“Being a hot-shot former police officer, you should know we have to wait for ballistics testing on that.”
So he was shot. “Not if any shell casings were left lying around, like when someone shot at me.”
The nervous tic disappeared, replaced by a sneer as he spread his legs and put his hands on his hips in the “I dare you” position. Inching his right hand down to the top of his holster, he growled, “Return to your car!”
Realizing he’d like nothing more than to whack me across the face with his Glock, I backed off. When I drove away, I saw in my rear view mirror that he was still watching me through those mirrored sunglasses.
Several hundred yards from the barricade, the blacktop curved around a rock ridge. The second I was out of the deputy’s sightline, I pulled to the side of the road and called Jimmy. “Is your dad near by?” I asked when he answered.
“Sure is. Why?”
“Move away so he can’t hear you.”
When he spoke next, he’d lowered his voice. “Okay, I’m on the other side of the room. Dad’s really worried about the Tosches thing. Behar told him…”
I cut him off. “Is there another way to reach the lodge or is that gravel road the only way in?”
“Lena, Dad says…”
I interrupted again. “Whatever kind of meltdown he’s having, fill me in when we meet up later because right now I need to get to the ranch before the detectives do. Tosches was shot to death on ranch property, so answer my question.” I hated to talk to my partner like that, but time was a-wasting.
A grunt. “I know what I’m getting you for Christmas: a course in etiquette. But since you’re acting like a jackrabbit with its tail on fire, there’s a dirt trail along the river where the wranglers take the guests riding. It crosses the highway about two miles west of the road to the ranch. The terrain’s pretty rough, better for horses than cars, but your Trailblazer should be able to navigate the worst spots. Frankly, I don’t understand the rush. Shooting or not, the lodge is a whole mile from the turnoff, so I doubt if anyone there knows anything.”
“If they do, I want to find out before the cops tell them to keep their mouths shut.” I ended the call.
The river trail wasn’t hard to find, and Jimmy hadn’t exaggerated its difficulty. So many big rocks were scattered along it that the average vehicle would have bottomed out, but with the Trailblazer’s high clearance I bumped over most of them with no trouble. Once I had to veer off-road and onto a steep incline to skirt a Volkswagen-sized boulder that turned the trail into a one-horse lane, but the Trailblazer handled the incline with dispatch. Past the boulder, the trail widened again, and within minutes I was pulling into the ranch’s parking area.
There’s nothing more wonderful than a ranch in the morning. A rooster crowed, hens clucked, and cactus wrens sang their tiny hearts out. Over in the corral, horses whinnied while the wranglers tacked them up. As I stepped away from the Trailblazer, the same blue-eyed heeler I’d met the other day came barking up to me, eyes sparkling, tail wagging.
“Hello there, big fella,” I said, stooping to pat his head.
He gifted me with a wet slurp across the face.
“Don’t kiss and tell,” I warned. With the dog at my heels, I walked toward the lodge. As luck would have it, the first person I ran into was Dusty. The handsome devil stood near the steps, looking great in his ass-hugging Levis.
I hardened my heart. “Good morning, Dusty. If you’re expecting customers, you can forget it.”
“Lena?!” He stared at me in shock. A master of the quick recovery, he walked toward me, arms spread wide.
I took three steps back. Not far enough back, however, that I couldn’t smell soap and Brut. “Has anyone other than Hank Olmstead and the cook left the ranch this morning?”
“Lena, honey…”
“I’m not your honey. Did you hear what I asked?”
He shook his Stetson-hatted head. It was old and ragged, but he made it look good. “I don’t know because I’ve spent most of my time in the corral getting the horses ready for a trail ride. I can’t see anyone driving off into town yet, it’s too early. Leilani doesn’t do the shopping until around ten. But Lena, honey…” He started toward me again.
I held up my hand to keep him away. “If you’re thinking of picking up where we left off, cowboy, forget it. You cheated on me, your new wife shot up my apartment, our relationship tanked, end of story.”
Responding to my harsh tone, the blue-eyed dog began to whine. So did Dusty.
“But Lena, babe, I got an annulment, and you know how much I lo…”
“Don’t call me babe, either. Roger Tosches was shot to death on the ranch road, right at the highway turnoff. The road is crawling with cops.”
It was Dusty’s turn to take a couple of steps back. In the silence that followed, the dog, apparently deciding that he no longer wanted to be part of the conversation, took off toward the corral and the sweeter company of horses.
Dusty found his voice again. “Tosches? Shot to death? You can’t be serious.”
“Very much so. Can you prove you didn’t leave the ranch this morning? The sheriff’s detectives are going to come screeching up that road any minute, Dusty, and with your background, you know they’ll want to talk to you.” Speeding tickets, bar fights, even one shooting. The other man had shot at him first, but it still looked bad on a police report.
He swallowed. “I got up with the rest of the wranglers—we sleep in the bunkhouse, you know—took leaks with them, showered with them, ate breakfast with them, saddled up with them…Hell, I haven’t spent a damned second alone.”
The relief I felt made me wonder if my feelings for him were as dead as I’d hoped. “Anyone else disappear during that time? One of the other wranglers? A maid? Maybe a ranch guest?”
“The other guys were as busy as me. The maids don’t show until ten, and none of them’s arrived early that I know of. As for the guests, we wranglers don’t eat with them so I have no way of knowing where they were or whatever the hell they were doing. Most of the time, I don’t even see them until they show up for their morning ride, which is now. We’ve got twelve horses saddled up and ready to go, but so far only ten riders, all guests. The other two are supposed to be driving in from Sunset Canyon Lakes. Or were. With the road being blocked, I guess the ride count stays at ten. If the cops let us ride out at all, that is.”
At Dusty’s mention of a possibly cancelled ride, I realized that Tosches’ murder, following so quickly after Donohue’s, could be a financial disaster for the ranch. There was nothing I could do about that, so I continued my questioning. “What about the family? Did any of them besides Hank leave the ranch?”
“Forget the family. They all live in the house out back. Most of them can’t drive, anyway, and they certainly don’t have access to weapons. You do know that they’re, ah, disabled, don’t you? Joyce and Pat, Mr. Olmstead’s sisters, help take care of them.”
“Did either sister leave the ranch?”
“Jesus, Lena, I’m not a baby-sitter. How would I know? The house’s location kind of limits spying, anyway. It’s behind that rise, way back in the cottonwoods.”
“Did you hear any gunshots this morning?”
He gave me a pitying look. “I hear gunshots every morning. In case you haven’t noticed, this is big game country.”
Deputy Smiley Face had said as much the day before. Studying Dusty’s blue eyes for any sign of evasiveness, I asked, “How well did you know Mia Tosches? I hear she com
es out here to ride.”
Those wonderful blue eyes sidled, first to the left, then the right. “Only to say hi to, that’s all.”
“Ever ball her?”
“Lena, your language!”
Oh, these men, with their philandering ways and lying eyes, expecting their own wives and girlfriends to be ignorant, faithful, and clean-mouthed. But Dusty wasn’t my boyfriend any more. That was a road long since traveled, and I wouldn’t be taking the trip again.
“C’mon, Dusty, you’ve never let a piece like that—excuse me, a woman like that—walk by without making a run at it.”
“You can be so crass.” At least his eyeballs stopped twitching. “All right, all right. We had ourselves a fling, nothing more than that. Her husband sure as hell didn’t mind.”
“She told you that?”
He looked up at the sky, as if imploring the heavens to come to his aid. They didn’t. “Kind of.”
I enjoyed watching the son of a bitch squirm. “Out with it, cowboy.”
“She, uh, she invited me up to her place to have dinner with her and her husband, said that she’d told him all about our, uh, liaison, and that he was interested in meeting me. Then she said that after dinner we could all, um, I believe the phrase she used was ‘get to know each other better,’ and it was damned clear what she meant.” Seeing my face, he added, “Look, I may not be Percy Pureheart, but three-ways have never been my thing. I told her I wasn’t interested and that was that. I never saw the little freak again.”
It was seedy enough to be the truth. Tosches was kinky and so was Mia; two peas in a nasty little pod. Realizing there was nothing more I would get from Dusty—nothing I wanted, anyway—I decided to go in search of Leilani. Before starting up the lodge steps, I asked him another question. “What do you know about the cook?”
“Gabe? He’s a real stand-up guy. There’s gossip going around the ranch this morning that’s he confessed to killing Ike Donohue, but that can’t be right. Gabe may have his eccentricities, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Every murderer I’ve known had been described by at least one person as possessing the inability to harm our winged friends. “How long’s he been working here?”
“Can’t help you there, ’cause he was here when I signed on last year. He’s a damn fine cook, too.”
I’d leave the cops to worry about the cook; he wasn’t my problem. Right now, Dusty was. But I hadn’t taken my leave from him quickly enough. Before I could duck out of the way, he crossed the space between us and slithered his cheating arms around me.
“Honey, I’ve done a lot of thinking and I realize how badly I treated you and I think we should…”
“No, we shouldn’t.” I disentangled myself and bounded up the steps to the lodge.
The smell of breakfast bacon lingered in the air as I walked through the dining area and down the hall to the office, where I found an attractive Polynesian woman sitting at Olmstead’s desk, working on a laptop covered with daisy stickers. She was around twenty, with her long black hair gathered into a perky ponytail by a yellow ribbon. Her Western-style blouse was the same yellow. Even the nametag spelling out LEILANI had been printed on a yellow background. When she saw me, her smile became as sunny as her outfit.
“Hi, there,” I said, smiling back. “I’m Lena Jones. We’ve talked on the phone.”
When she stood up to extend her hand, the brace on her left leg clanked. “Oh, Miss Jones, we are so grateful for the help you’ve given Ted. You and Jimmy kept his hopes alive until poor old Gabe confessed.”
In the face of such cheer I hated to bring her down but it was necessary. “The police haven’t been here yet, have they?”
That beautiful smile vanished. “What’s wrong? Did Gabe change his mind about confessing? I can’t believe he could kill anyone, but Dad said…”
“Leilani, this isn’t about your cook. Roger Tosches was found shot to death this morning on the road to your ranch.”
Stunned, she sat back down. “First Mr. Donohue, then Mr. Tosches. What in the world is going on?”
“I don’t know, but that’s why I’m here, to find out as much as I can.” I almost added So Tosches’ murder doesn’t blow back on your family like Donohue’s did. If your Dad goes to prison, Jimmy might never return to Desert Investigations. With his strong sense of loyalty, he might feel obligated to stay and help run the ranch, and Leilani, I can’t let that happen. I kept my fears to myself. After bringing her up to date on the morning’s events, I asked, “Did any of the guests or anyone else you know of leave the ranch after your Dad drove Mr. Boone into town?”
“I…I…” She took a deep breath. “As soon as Dad and Gabe left for the sheriff’s office, I came over here to check the inventory so I could figure out what supplies to pick up in town and what to order online, so I have no idea who was here or not. Dusty might. Did you ask him?” At my nod, she continued. “He’s the head wrangler and is pretty good at keeping tabs on who is where. We can’t have our guests wandering off into the desert by themselves. City folks, they think there’s a drinking fountain next to every cactus.”
“How well did you know Mr. Tosches?”
“Hardly at all. Dad knew him better, and didn’t much like him. As for me, I’m sorry Mr. Tosches is dead, and in such a horrible way, but he was a pest.”
This was the first time I’d ever heard a gazillionaire referred to as a pest. “In what way?”
“Mr. Tosches was always trying to get Dad to sell him the ranch so he could build another one of those awful resorts. At first he simply called on the phone, but recently he’d begun dropping by in the mornings, probably hoping he’d catch Dad at a weak moment. Maybe that’s what he was doing when…” She gulped. “When he got shot. Not that Dad had anything to do with it, of course.”
“Of course he didn’t.” The thought of another Emerald City gobbling up more of the desert’s natural terrain disgusted even a city dweller like me, so I could imagine Olmstead’s ire. “I take it your dad refused to sell.”
“Well…” She bit her lip. “The tourist business is dependent on the economy, and when the economy crashes, so do we. Things were pretty tight around here, which is what gave Mr. Tosches the idea. A couple of years ago Dad made some investments that on the surface seemed secure, but they tanked with the economy. Then our usual guests started canceling their reservations because they were in financial difficulties, too. Things were so bad, for a while I suspected Dad was giving Mr. Tosches’ offer some serious thought. Ranch problems aside, medical costs were eating us up.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the family photo hanging on the rear wall. Several Down syndrome kids, others with different disabilities. No wonder Olmstead had been financially strapped. “But in the end your father decided against selling?”
“Yes, thank God. Not that Mr. Tosches accepted his refusal. He just kept coming by, pestering and pestering. He finally got so pushy with Dad they had a big fight.” Realizing what she’d said, she tried again. “Well, not an actual fight, an argument, that’s all. Nothing violent. A couple of weeks ago I was in the kitchen talking to Gabe about breakfast supplies, and I heard Dad and Mr. Tosches shouting at each other. Then the office door slammed shut. I guess Dad was afraid the guests might overhear.”
Knowing that the authorities had fingered Ted because of a simple argument, I had to wonder what they’d do if they found out about a brawl between Olmstead and Tosches. “Leilani, it might be a good idea if you don’t mention any of this to the cops.”
“About Mr. Tosches and Dad arguing? No chance of that!”
Given Walapai Flats’ small size, I wondered how long it would take before the cops got wind of the tension between Tosches and Olmstead. “Can you tell me anything about what happened this morning, how the cook came to confess to killing Ike Donohue?”
Leilani must have been fond of Boone, because sadness draped her pretty face like a cowl. “Poor old guy, what will he do? I mean…” When she wiped at
her eyes, I realized she’d begun to cry. “He…Dad…I’m not sure because it was all over before I walked over from the house this morning. I was setting up the dining room for breakfast when Dad called me into the office and told me Gabe confessed to shooting Mr. Donohue. I couldn’t believe it, and I’m not sure I really do now. But Dad said it was true, that while Gabe was just about to start cooking breakfast, he—Dad—told him about Mr. Donohue getting murdered and that Ted was being held on that material witness thing. Gabe was so upset he cut himself with the knife he was holding. After he stopped the bleeding, he went back to chopping the potatoes for the home fries. While he did, he told Dad that after breakfast was over, he’d drive into Walapai Flats and confess.”
“I thought Mr. Olmstead drove him in.”
“Dad talked him into accepting the ride. Maybe he was afraid Gabe might change his mind at the last minute and make a run for it in that old pickup truck of his.” A worry line, almost the duplicate of her adopted father’s, appeared between her tear-filled eyes. “You know what? I would never have thought Gabe was the type to kill anyone. He’s never raised a hand in anger, not toward anyone, not even an animal. Especially not animals. You should see him with the horses and that goofy dog of his.”
Hitler was supposed to have been an animal-lover, too, and a fat lot of good that did millions of humans. Out of curiosity, I asked, “What do you know about his personal life?”
She shook her head. “He never talked about it. Dad said he used to be a wrangler, and I know he was married once because there’s a picture of his wife on his bedside table. She died a long time ago and he never got over it. I think her name was Abby.”
“Losing a spouse takes some men that way.” I was thinking about Reverend Giblin, the best foster father I’d ever had. Thirty years after his wife’s death, he still mourned her.
“There’s one more thing I can tell you about Gabe and it’s really cute,” Leilani continued. “He’s a big John Wayne fan, calls him ‘the Duke,’ and he knows everything there is to know about him. He even has an autographed picture of him hanging in his room. Want to see?”
